Friday, April 4, 2014

4 April 1991 - The Robins Find Their Batman

On 4 April 1991, former Tottenham star midfielder Glenn Hoddle (pictured second from the right) was appointed player-manager of Division Two side Swindon Town F.C.

Prior to his term with Swindon, he had just finished a successful four-year term at AS Monaco in France playing under Arsene Wenger. (He spent a month with Chelsea in the interim, but made no senior appearances for the Blues before taking the post with the Robins).

Swindon Town was Hoddle's first managerial appointment. At the time he took charge, the Robins were 17th in the Division 2 table and in danger of relegation. Hoddle kept them up, but just barely, taking only 7 points of the 24 available during the remainder of the season and finishing in 21st place, only two points above the drop zone.

Under Hoddle, the Robins finished in 8th place the following season. The improvement continued in the 1992-93 season, when Swindon reached the playoffs and earned promotion to England's top flight, the recently-established Premier League.

Hoddle went on to manage Chelsea from 1993-96 (as player-manager from 1993-95, and solely as manager in 1996), then England from 1996-99. His tenure with English national team was controversial, despite qualifying for the 1998 World Cup, where England lost to Argentina on penalties in the second round in a match famous for David Beckham being sent off in the 47th minute. Hoddle was dimissed from the English side in 1999 after giving an interview with the Times in which he suggested that physical disabilities were the result of bad karma "from another lifetime."

Hoddle returned to management with Southampton (2001-01), Tottenham Hotspur (2001-03), and Wolverhampton Wanderers (2004-06), but has since retired from management.

In 2008, he established the Glenn Hoddle Academy in Jerez, Spain to aid former Premier League and Football League Championship players in their efforts to return to professional football.